Forty or fifty stretcher-bearers awaited their burdens at the door. The living were sent to the hospital, the dead to the chapel. They waited in silence, and sometimes a sigh escaped them as they contemplated this picture.
VIII.
Kalouguine met many wounded on his way to the bastion. Knowing by experience the bad influence of this spectacle on the spirit of a man who is going under fire, he not only did not stop them to ask questions, but he tried not to notice those he met. At the foot of the hill he ran across a staff-officer coming down from the bastion full speed.
“Zobkine! Zobkine! one moment!”
“What?”
“Where do you come from?”
“From the quarters.”
“Well, what is going on there? Is it hot?”
“Terribly!”
And the officer galloped off. The fusillade seemed to grow less; on the other hand, the cannonade began again with renewed vigor.